So my buddy Tom and I (he of the breakfast club) went out for dinner, a beer, and a most excellent show Saturday night.
I mentioned this back in Januaryand last night it happened. Ally and her band are absolutely incredible. Tom and I had to get pictures with the young lady and she is as gracious as she is talented.
I will definitely go see her again. The venue she was at was The Narrows in Fall River, MA, a great place to see a show. It's not big, seats around 400, so you get to be right there with the music. The place has great acoustics, if you're ever in town, look it up. They have a lot of great musicians coming through.
But for now, it's late Saturday night as I write, so it's off to bed for the Sarge. Tomorrow evening it's supposed to snow like crazy, we'll see how that goes. I haven't been in a blizzard in a while, haven't missed it at all!
T.F. Green Long Term Parking at Oh-Dark-Thirty OAFS Photo
... that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The lines and the TSA at the airport,
Or to just get in the car against a sea of traffic
And by driving just do it.¹
It is, dear reader, almost time to head south again. The Missus Herself is off to California to visit LUSH for a fortnight leaving me, Your Humble Scribe, to once again fend for himself. As the invitation to visit The Nuke is always open, I decided to go there for a week, or so, rather than entertain myself at Chez Sarge.
I know what you're thinking, "But Sarge, all these gaming posts you've done recently, surely this is your opportunity to do that without interruption or snide remarks about 'being in front of a computer all day.'"
I know, I know, there is that. But Your Humble Scribe is a social animal (stop laughing) and requires the presence of other humans for to survive. No seriously, at certain times of year I don't mind the solitary life, but when the weather outside is frightful (but the fire is so delightful) I'd rather be around other people. Besides, there is a fireplace at Chez Tuttle et Nuke, whereas at Chez Sarge there is not.
The Nuke did ask me if I'd like to fly down. I thought about it for perhaps a second before responding with a resounding "NO!"
Mind you, I don't mind flying, but I do like to have a vehicle when I get to where I'm flying to. Now, the kids would let me use one of their vehicles when visiting, it's been mentioned. But here's the thing, they drive Teslas. Both of them (not both Teslas, there are more than two, both kids I mean).
While not opposed to the technology (I enjoy riding in a Tesla) I'm hesitant to take command of such an expensive vehicle when it doesn't belong to me. Rent a car? No, are you insane? This is me that has to pay for it, not my former company.
So I drive. Besides which, I enjoy driving my car. She's an awesome ride, comfortable, lots of get up and go, and she does well in inclement weather. Sure, it's a long-ish trip, roughly 420 miles which translates to 7 to 8 hours, but I don't mind.
It's also cheaper than flying, just parking at the airport costs more than the fuel required to get there and back again. It's less hassle than flying because, let's face it, going through TSA, and all the minor indignities that entails, just ain't worth it. I'll fly if it's a really, really long trip (takes more than a day), but for Maryland?
Where's my car keys?
And that's how I feel about that.
Why am I not going to California with The Missus Herself? Well, California is a long-ass flight, been there, done that, multiple times. Besides which, we're going on a trip to California in April, I didn't want to do it twice in one three month stretch. Too many (less than fond) memories of flying out to Sandy Eggo for work and staring out the window saying, "Damn, it looks like Mars down there," after crossing the Mississippi River. Hour after hour ...
So I drive. I can also get out and stretch my legs, get Dunkin' or Starbucks when I feel like it and generally act the care-free soul.
Yes, the other drivers can be a colossal pain, but as long as they're not trying to actively kill me, I can exercise due caution and avoid most of that.
It can be "interesting" but hey, it's what I like to do. I drive, because I can.
Yup, back in the saddle again, this time with Call to Arms: Panzer Elite from Digitalmindsoft Publishing. I originally got into this publisher's games via their Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront. When Panzer Elite came out, I jumped on it. I mean, y'all know my love of tanks. (And juvat, I'll try and find some screenshots of aircraft blowing up tanks in one of the games I have. I know it's there, just haven't played that particular setup yet.)
This one is in early release, in other words you buy the game and provide feedback to the developers and as the game gets updated, you get the updates. Basically you're paying for a finished product and get to help test that product. I don't mind, that particular business model seems to be working for a lot of game publishers.
Anyhoo, that opening photo is the standard player's view. You're hovering behind your tank so it's perhaps a bit more "arcade-ish" than IL-2 Sturmovik - Stalingrad. But it's great fun. Once you see something you might want to shoot at, you can zoom in to this view ...
Screenshot - Call to Arms: Panzer Elite
I thought I saw movement just beyond that farm ahead to the right, so I zoomed in to the gunner's position. Moments later a Pzkw IV came rumbling into view. He blew off my left track but this was his fate ...
Screenshot - Call to Arms: Panzer Elite
I'm not sure if the crew can bail out at this stage of development, they can in Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront, in that game you can bring up spare vehicle crews to repair and re-man a vehicle. Which is pretty cool.
For now, if the vehicle dies, so does the crew.
As for Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront, it looks like this ...
Screenshot - Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront
Screenshot - Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront
You can play zoomed out, with a map showing you your guys and known enemy positions, or you can zoom way in, like that last screenshot, to really see what's going on. You can order your units to advance, fight, withdraw, what have you, and they'll execute in real time. Then you can zoom in and watch the action.
It's immersive, very immersive.
I highly recommend both, if you've got at least this much oomph in your machine:
Minimum System Requirements
OS *: 64bit - Windows 7, 8, 10, 11
MEMORY: 16 GB RAM
GRAPHICS: GTX 1070 / RX 5600
DIRECTX: Version 11
STORAGE: 80 GB available space
SOUND CARD: DirectX 11 compatible
ADDITIONAL NOTES: SSD drive and fast internet connection needed for optimal gameplay
If you've got that, or better, you should be able to run these games. (juvat - Not sure if they'll run on a Mac, but the discussion page on Steam says "Yes" it runs on Windows and Mac.)
Sorry gotta run, Krauts are breaking through near St. Vith!
Me-410 Hornisse Screenshot - IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad
I finally got around to hooking up my old Saitek X52 Flight Control System to the new desktop machine. I was somewhat worried that it wouldn't work well with the newer machine running Windows 11, but it does work and it seems (so far) to be working well.
It's been awhile since I've taken to the air in this old (but continually updated) flight sim which, to me, is the best I've ever "flown."
P-51 Mustang Screenshot - IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad
What you see above is the view looking out of a P-51 over France. One thing vastly improved from the early versions of this flight sim (I hesitate to call it a "game") are the clouds. They looked pretty good back in late 2001, when the sim first came out, they look fantastic now.
The flight models in the later version of the sim are much improved as well. No flinging the old kite about the sky with wild abandon anymore, do that and guaranteed you'll stall or go into a spin. It was much harder to crash the bird in the early versions.
So while I play, I don't write, much.
I'm also working my way through the old HBO Rome series, one episode to go. I enjoy my time with Vorenus and Pullo, they're like old friends now.
Ah well, me and my fantasy worlds.
In other news ...
We're expecting more snow here, but the forecast has been bouncing all over the place, which is typical when they try to forecast ten days in the future. Right now it's raining, which was predicted. That might turn to snow after sundown.
Oh boy.
But on the bright side, the temperatures are in the high 30s during the day. Which after the last few weeks feels downright balmy!
So there you have it.
The rest of the world keeps working while the Old AF Sarge plays with his toys.
When I heard that the Reverend Jesse Jackson had passed away. I noted that he had been born in 1941, my first thought being, "Wow, he wasn't that old." Then I saw the report mentioned that he was 84 years old. So he had lived a good, long life.
I don't think of the 1940s as being all that long ago, probably because I spend a lot of time reading about World War II, which ended eight years before I was born. (VE day was exactly eight years before my birth.)
After all, I'm pushing 73, which doesn't, from my perspective, feel all that old. Though my knees and back are probably figuratively "rolling their eyes" at that statement. My brain is still pretty young-thinking, my body usually does feel its age. Especially after rough-housing with my grandsons Roberto and Finnegan.
Time flies, neh?
I had the thought that I had retired from the Air Force some 25 years ago ...
Nope, it's 27 years ago as of May. I retired from Raytheon 14 months ago, and I spent 25 years there.
Robert Duvall, one of my favorite actors, passed away this week as well. That one hit close to home as he was younger than my mother! I'd like to say that Mom is still going strong as she heads towards 96, but she's not. Not really. She's forgetful as hell, can't hear to save her life and is far too stubborn to consent to having us get her hearing aids. She gets by, day to day.
Getting old ain't for sissies.
Brad Arnold of Three Doors Down died back on the 7th of February. While not a huge fan of their music (I only own one album, and that's a greatest hits album) I did enjoy their music, and their energy.
I love that band for the simple fact of this video ...
I need to get more of their music.
Life comes at you fast, enjoy it while you can.
Peace.
¹ F/A-18F clock given to me by LUSH. Time, in this case, does seem to fly literally.
That's Your Humble Scribe on the left in the photo, striking some odd pose as is my wont. Behind me is my oldest kid brother The Olde Vermonter, he's the one who posted this old (circa mid-60s) photo on the Book of Faces. Moving further to the right there is my maternal grandfather (technically step-grandfather but we didn't view it that way, then my Dad. In front of him are milk cans which Gramp used to collect maple sap, which was then boiled down to make maple syrup. Behind the grown-ups is the sugar house, where all the boiling of sap took place.
Scurrying about in their usual excited frenzy at having us boys visit can be seen Bimmy, part beagle, part bird (more on that in a bit) and traveling out of the picture is Tippy, just his hindquarters and tail made the photo. Tippy was mostly collie, probably other breeds mixed in there, but he looked mostly collie.
It's been over fifty years since I've seen those dogs and I miss them still. They were loyal, affectionate, and terrors to the local woodchuck population. Gramp didn't like woodchucks for the damage they'd cause to Gram's garden so he was an active participant in culling the woodchuck population.
That aside, those two dogs would go crazy when our car would pull up to the farmhouse. They would dash back and forth barely standing still long enough to get petted, yipping in excitement, their happiness showing plainly on the canine faces. Eventually my Mom would tell us to separate ourselves from Tippy and Bimmy and go say hello to our grandparents.
Now I refer to Bimmy as being "part bird" for the simple fact that when he ran, his ears flapped up and down. Pretty standard for a floppy eared dog, I know. But when we'd ride the tractor up to the pasture, Tippy and Bimmy would run behind, Bimmy's ears going up and down for all the world like he was trying to get airborne. So "part beagle, part bird."
Those dogs were devoted to my grandparents and to my Uncle Hank, gram's brother, who also lived on the farm. But one day Gramp told us that the dogs loved us kids above all others. To demonstrate he took us all outside.
He pretended to start coming after us, as if to hit us, and quick as you like, Tippy and Bimmy placed themselves between us and him, snarling, prepared to attack if anyone dared to lay hands on us, including the man they spent a lot of their lives with, day in, day out.
As I get older, I remember times like those more and more. I can remember the smell of the smoke from the sap being boiled, the wood waiting to go into the fire, the mud, the snow. The spring sunshine just starting to make the days a little more pleasant after a long winter.
I remember my grandfather, not a man to express his feelings with words, more by deeds. My Dad, always trying to teach us boys not to be idiots, he had his work cut out for him with me! Mom and Gram in the kitchen cooking and/or baking something.
I remember those two dogs every day. The love they had for us, their excellent companionship and especially their energy. I miss them.
OK, I don't think I've written about this subject before. I don't know if what I'm going to talk about is still being done. I don't think it is, but it had a lot of good results in it's day.
The program was called "Incentive Rides". Members of the non-rated Air Force (AKA not Pilots or WSO's*) who had impressed their chain of command could be selected for an Incentive Ride in one of the Base's jets.
Yes, Beans, in a two seater.
They would get some basic training on emergency equipment just in case things went south. Then they would be put on the flying schedule with a very experienced pilot. They would be briefed on what was going to happen on the ride, and how to deal with it.
Basically, this was pulling G's. When a fighter turns, the pilot rolls the jet into an appropriate angle of bank. Airliners do the same, but it's usually no more that 10 degrees of bank. Fighters generally turn using 70+ degrees of bank.
Oh, did I mention that when a fighter goes into a high bank angle, the G-Load gets pretty high pretty fast. Which can include, if not prepared, the possibility of losing consciousness. That could ruin the mission of the incentive ride because the rules state if someone loses consciousness, whether a person on an incentive ride, or a experienced fighter pilot/WSO, returning to base and landing is mandatory.
Oh yeah, a visit to the Flight Surgeon is also required.
I always enjoyed giving them that ride so I went to great extremes to keep them happy (and avoid them having to visit the Flight Surgeon). It was a reward for excellent effort on their part in getting their job done. As such, in the brief, I would ask what kind of ride they would like. The options were anything from a fantastic view of the local area in complete comfort (OK relative comfort, they WERE strapped in to an ejection seat) up to a ride that would make the best Disneyland E-ticket ride feel like a walk in the park.
I distinctly remember one of the incentive rides I gave. I was scheduled to fly a ride with a Senior Airman (E-3) Crew Chief who'd had a very good record in keeping "his" F-4 mission ready.
In the briefing, I mentioned those briefed options This Airman was from the deep south. He answered. "Sir, I don't wanna do any "Loop-de-Loops".
OK.
We take off and are in the local practice area, driving around like a Cadillac. I'm bored to tears. I hear him ask "Sir, can we do a little faster turn?"
"Why, yes I can". I roll into bank and pull 2 G turn. He says, "That was great, can you turn faster?"
"Why, yes I can". I roll into about 70 degrees of bank and pull on the stick to 6 G's (our g-loading limit). I hear this loud yell over the intercom, so immediately roll wings level and ease off the stick to 1 G.
"Airman, are you ok?"
"Sir, that was Sheet Hot!"
I immediately went into demonstrating high speed, 2 or 3 G maneuvering. After a bit, he asks "Sir, can we do a Loop Dee Loop?"
A loop is a 4 or more G maneuver.
I start the maneuver.
At the top of the loop, I look in the mirror, he's got his head back looking at the ground above him. He lets out a "Yeee HAWWWW!' over the intercom.
Brought a smile to my face, yes it did.
Suffice it to say, whenever I got assigned his aircraft, I got treated quite well.
Based on that ride, I volunteered to fly any incentive ride I could. The people that were going for the ride were the cream of the crop, so this was a reward for both of us.
This was another ride I knew about. Somebody I'm deeply proud of, even now, got selected for an incentive ride in the F-4E. The pilot is on the left, next to him is the Wing Executive officer, next is his assistant executive officer, next is my Weapons System Office (WSO AKA Back Seater), Me, then my Flight Commander.
The young lady in the middle is also my wife. One of the traditions of flying a fighter in the USAF is soaking one down on their final flight at that assignment. When she landed the tradition was carried out.
I asked the Pilot how she did. No problems and a lot of fun. Excellent!
We received orders shortly thereafter. She and I were going to Holloman AFB to fly AT-38s.
That would be Captain/Mrs. Juvat in the back seat
Fast forward 3 years. We're now at Holloman and about to leave, Mrs J (AKA Capt/Mrs J) gets scheduled for another incentive ride. There is one obstacle, she is pregnant with our son. The flight surgeon said "No" to the flight. So, they do a high speed taxi ride.
Shortly thereafter, it's my turn, the squadron members (who weren't flying, briefing or debriefing met me at the jet with fire extinguishers to wet me down and present me with a cheap bottle of Champagne. I had enjoyed the time, but had bigger, better, faster things ahead of me.
The guy to the left in the picture? Yeah, I took some gun camera film of him
Yep, that's me after my last ride in the Eagle, also the last airplane I was at the controls of. Mrs J (at the time Major J) only got a taxi ride in the Eagle because of a medical condition which is obvious in this picture. MBD was born a month or so later.
I really enjoyed taking folks on incentive rides, they were satisfying to both parties.
So..a little music about the subject, just because it seems right!
*WSO -Weapons System Officer. Basically the non-pilot on board a fighter responsible for a lot of different jobs in some fighters (F-4 and F-111, back in the day, F-15E nowadays)
Screenshot of the Commander's Position in the Panther IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad
Contrast the German Panther commander's position above with that of the Soviet KV-1 commander's position below ...
Screenshot of the Commander's Position in the KV-1 IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad
Note the game play aids along the bottom of the screen along with the mini-map in the lower right hand corner.
I've had this game for a long time, couple of years at least. When I got it my machine didn't really have the cojones to run the game, it IS a resource hog, comparatively speaking. My Razer laptop could run it but that poor beast died before I could really get to this game. Okay, I have a LOT of games for the computer.
My current laptop has the cojones to run the game but, and this is a big but, the laptop heats up quickly when playing games of this sort and I don't really want to burn up another laptop. Laptops are deuced useful when traveling dontcha know? But the smell of hot electronics bothers me. A lot. Can't imagine why. (Bit of snark there, I used to work avionics and the smell of hot electronics meant there was something we had to fix ... Which is exactly why I don't like that smell.)
My current desktop machine has lots of power and lots of cooling fans, seven to be precise, and the CPU is liquid cooled, not quite like a Maxim machine gun but you get the idea.
I'm still getting to know this new machine (so far I love it) and I do that by playing games on it. It's who I am, it's what I do. Can't command armies in the field but I certainly can on my computer. Best of all, no one gets hurt for real.
A game I am anxiously awaiting is Grand Tactician: Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815). The following screenshot might tell you why ...
Grand Tactician: Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815)
I have the American Civil War version of this, Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865) and enjoy it though the graphics aren't quite as good as what is shown above. As can be seen below ...
Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865)
The units seemed to be scaled better in the former, by which I mean the number of men represented on the display matches what the actual unit would have. If a battalion has 500 men, you'll see 500 men. The latter game seems to have fewer soldiers on the display than would be present in real life. Then again, that might be a setting the user can fiddle with. More items to display takes longer and on lower end machines could really bog down the game play. We shall see.
So that's what I'm up to, as for material for blog posts the well does seem to be running dry. Maybe it's me being lazy (or tired, I stay up way too late playing these damned games) or perhaps I need a break.
Might take a couple of weeks away from the hurla burla of the internet, I'm starting to need it. Failbook is driving me nuts (too much political shit) so I'm cutting back on my time spent over there. I'll read friend and family posts about their families and vacations but not much more. It's getting out of hand. (And don't get me started on the number of bloody ads Failbook inundates us with.)
Anyhoo, enjoy your Sunday. See you ...
Uh, scratch that, be back on Tuesday with something, I dunno ...
Thursday, the first of the so-called “crazy days” leading up to Lent, is known as Weiberfastnacht or the Women's Carnival, where women cut off men's ties as a symbol of power reversal. The women sometimes reward obliging men with a bützchen, or friendly peck on the cheek, a less common tradition today.Source(You can also read about it in more detail here.)
So yes, Thursday, Lincoln's Birthday, was Altweiberfastnacht. (I think the "Alt" part of the name was lost to political correctness some time ago, as it means "old," just like no one says "Fräulein" any more. Modern times, yuck.) I saw mention of this on the internet on Friday, brought back a memory it did. Of the old days. (Hhmm, mentioning the "old days" and Germany in the same context is problematic, innit?)
Anyhoo.
There I Was ...
Sitting at my desk at Geilenkirchen AB, Germany, compiling a bunch of C++ code as I recall. It was a large-ish program and compiling and linking all of it took some semi-lengthy amount of time. Perhaps 30 minutes or so. Then if something is amiss, you fix it and start over again.
Normally (normalerweise, auf Deutsch) I would occupy my time during a long compile by playing cards (FreeCell to be precise) on the computer while monitoring progress. One Altweiberfastnacht (I believe it was 1999, some three months prior to retiring from the Air Force) I was doing just that. While doing so, a band of celebrants of the female variety entered my office on a mission to cut the ties off of any man they encountered.
As I normally wore my BDUs¹ to work, having occasion to sometimes crawl about the lab and other places where computer equipment was in use to check on cables (which the cleaning staff would sometimes inadvertently unhook or otherwise cause to lose connectivity) and having once destroyed a rather pricey pair of uniform pants doing that, I felt justified in doing so. (My colonel once chided me for that, after explaining myself, he relented, in fact he started wearing his BDUs to work as well. Now it seems to be all the rage.)
Long story short, one does not wear a tie with BDUs, now on Altweiberfastnacht the ladies, especially the European ones, get annoyed if one does not wear a tie so that they can destroy it, so I adopted the expedient of fashioning a false tie out of cardboard and affixing that to my attire in lieu of wearing an actual tie, which would get destroyed. Not being made of money, as the saying goes, I did not wish to lose a tie once a year. So ...
Anyhoo, long story short ...
I'm sitting at my desk, monitoring my compile job and having a game of FreeCell when I hear the clamor of a group of females approaching my position. When they entered I presented my fake tie for destruction which some of the ladies (the Europeans) chuckled at, as they knew me well by this point, this being my 8th Altweiberfastnacht. They snipped it and prepared to move on to find their next victim when one paused, looked at my computer screen, then looked at me. I should note that this lady was an American captain (O-3 Air Force type, not O-6 Navy type).
"Playing games on Air Force time?" she asked in a semi-serious tone.
"I'm compiling ma'am, while I'm compiling I play FreeCell. And yes, I'm compiling on Air Force time, as well as playing a game."
"Hhmm, that seems less than professional."
I realized at that point that she might be serious after all, it seems to be a habit of our non-rated officers to be somewhat, shall we say, pretentious. As a senior noncommissioned officer, I felt it was my duty to respond in a corrective manner.
"Perhaps ma'am, but maybe just as professional as running around the building cutting off ties."
At which the European ladies all had a good laugh and our young captain blushed mightily, realizing the absurdity of her position. The ladies left without further ado.
When the compile was done, I went and picked up The Missus Herself and went to join the festivities at the club on base. Fun times were had, no ties were harmed on my part.
So a few years back I had the privilege of "flying" the F/A-18 simulator out at NAS Lemoore, where Big Time and LUSH live. While Big Time is still on active duty, he's now on CAG staff aboard USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) so he doesn't fly as much as he used to. Odds are I won't get another sim ride in this lifetime. More's the pity.
Anyhoo, I was reminded of that sim ride when Michael mentioned in yesterday's comments how the Navy uses a lot of simulation to train their sailors. So I went down memory lane and decided to repost this one from 2013. I mean I'm really busy playing games at the moment, so ...
One more thing, Beaner49 asked if there were any new tank sims for the PC and I had mentioned Sherman Commander being (maybe) released this year. I went to Steam to see if there were any updates and lo and behold discovered that they had released a demo of that sim. I downloaded it, checked it out, and all I can say is ...
TAKE MY MONEY!!
Anyhoo, here's a blast from the past, perhaps I'll ...
Damn it, gotta run, got a contact off the port bow, might be a sub, might be a whale, but I have to check it out ...
Okay, that's not the view from a Rhino as you approach "the boat", but it gives you a pretty good idea what I was seeing in the simulator today. Well, kind of...
I was always a bit high. To my credit I didn't do a ramp strike.
So I had that going for me.
Got to the sim building on time (which can be a minor miracle when you have to get a three year old ready at the same time!) I settled into "the jet" right around 1045 local. After adjusting the rudder pedals and the seat, we were ready to go. Son-in-law Big Time was my instructor and he's a good one. Tells you what to do and why you do it a particular way.
After an unfortunate, "What the Hell was that?" incident, (Big Time hit a button, all I saw was the "red screen o' Death" then we reset) we were ready for take-off. Out of NAS Miramar of all places!
F9F-6P of VC-61 over NAS Miramar (Back in the day)
When Big Time said we were ready to go, the throttles went forward, past the detent and into 'burner. As he put it, "Guess you know about that part..." As he started to speak again I had already eased in a bit of right rudder to correct a rather disturbing "Hey look, I'm heading off the left side of the runway" problem.
In moments we were "airborne", simulated of course.
This sim was rather placid, no movement to give you a feel for flying, but rather nice displays and sound. We seemed to be flying around the time of nautical twilight. Either that or someone needed to crank up the brightness and contrast. Heh.
I was at 20K in no time flat so we played around for a while. Did a loop, which was alright until I did the old "look straight up and back to acquire the horizon" thing only to note that the all-around displays weren't quite 360-degrees. Directly overhead, nothing. So I looked right, reacquired the horizon and pulled out comfortably with beaucoup altitude to spare. I hadn't tied the low altitude record yet!
Next I wanted to build up some smash. I suppose I could have put the nose down to gain airspeed but where's the fun in that? Past the detent and into 'burner I went (after all we're in the sim, who cares about fuel conservation?)
When I got her going pretty good, I pulled back to military power, rolled left and pulled the stick back hard into a pretty sweet high-G turn. Big Time showed me the read-out, I think I got it up to 5-Gs. But as you couldn't really feel it, it wasn't that much fun. So I figured I would do some more maneuvering to see if I could at least not look like an idiot while "flying".
Did a rather nice Immelmann (again, the lack of a full 360 display was a bit disconcerting), then from there went into a Split-S. (Yes, I did check the altitude first!) While enjoying the sight of the displays reacting to my maneuvering I kind of lost my situational awareness. Next thing I know "Bitching Big Time" is muttering in my ear, "Pull up, pull up". Oh yes, boys and girls, the Old AF Sarge was rapidly approaching tying the low altitude record but through judicious back pressure on the stick (as in trying to touch my spine with the joystick) I managed to level off at a rather uncomfortable 100 feet.
By the way, the simulator displays are rather 3-D. 50 feet lower and I do believe I would've plowed into a ridge. At least it looked like a ridge as it passed rather rapidly under the jet.
So, let's find the boat and try and land this beast.
After some fooling around (and a reset to give me a bit more fuel, remember I went into 'burner more than was probably prudent early in the flight) there was this disturbance on the ocean's surface.
"That's the wake?"
"Yup, of course we're pretty far out yet. It'll get bigger."
Well, technically yes, it does get bigger. But OH MY GOD I HAVE TO LAND WHERE?
Yes, big ocean, small boat. Relatively speaking.
First approach wasn't too bad. Of course, the old timers would no doubt argue that the jet practically lands itself. You can set Automatic Throttle Control (ATC) which will manage your airspeed pretty nicely. Unless you jerk the controls around a bit much. Then the onboard computers decide, "Well, the meatware seems to want to do things his way, alright, YOUR JET!"
Yup, ATC will shut off if your control inputs are, shall we say, a bit rough. Ditto the autopilot. Kind of sucks when you're slamming the jet around trying to stay on path and on glideslope. Gently does it cowboy, gently!
Rhino Heads Up Display (HUD)
So I'm coming in pretty good, just a tad high. Big Time says "chop the power" (or words to that effect), I pull the throttles all the way back. I'm on the deck.
Um, shouldn't I be stopping now? Laughing maniacally, I push the throttles into 'burner and start yelping "bolter, bolter, bolter". Time to try again.
"So Big Time, what happened there?"
"Well, you came down a little hard, so I'm guessing you managed to bounce your 'hook over all four of the wires."
"Well. That sucks."
"Hey, it happens."
"To you?"
"Of course not."
So we went around again. For two more touch and goes. And one low pass over the boat when I realized I had pulled back on the stick instead of pushing forward like my nice IP told me to.
"What was that?"
"Uh, I wanted to wave at the Admiral?"
"Right..."
So our sim time was up. I never did trap, but I didn't damage the carrier in any way. No sailors were harmed.
I also was amazed at just how much seawater those General Electric F414 engines can suck down and still function.
(While I never hit the boat, we did go swimming a couple of times.)
As we departed the sim, the operator guy who controls everything said, "You need a little work on your landings." Yes, we all had a good laugh at that. Nice of him to say "a little", rather than, "Hey, you suck at this!"
All in all, three things today -
1) It's not easy landing on an aircraft carrier,
2) Big Time is a superb instructor,
3) Aircraft carriers only look big when you're not trying to land on them.
Nope, no tanks today, I've been too busy learning a new game on the computer. It's one of those games about which my former naval officer son once remarked, "Too much like what I do for work for me to really enjoy it ..."¹
And this one is pretty good.
I picked this up a few months back but haven't really had the chance to really get into it until now. I did play it once right after I got it, decided to jump straight in without playing any of the tutorials and got my ass kicked.
I was in charge of two ships doing gunfire support off the coast of Vietnam, feeling my way through the controls. A couple of enemy aircraft came on scene, seeing a MiG make a low pass over my flagship, unopposed because I forgot to tell the lads to engage, made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up.
Seeing BOTH of my ships dead in the water and on fire, really got my attention. This time, I'm going through all of the tutorials, multiple times no doubt, before going to sea again!
There's a lot to this game and it's going to take some time to get good at it, or I might suck at it forever, that happens. So bear with me, if the posts seem short, it's probably because I'm out at sea somewhere, stalking someone, or running from someone.
So far, I am very impressed.
It's something to watch your aircraft come up on the elevators (on a carrier) or come out of the hangar (helicopters on destroyers), watch them preflight, then launch. The graphics are pretty good, much sharper than the release trailer above.
I should note that this game is in "Early Release," which means we get to pay to play and provide bug reports and suggestions to the developers. I should note that I have zero problems with this. In my old job I remarked on more than one occasion that that was the sort of work I'd pay someone to let me do. So getting paid to do it was a bonus.
The time period is the Cold War, so think Sprucans and older non-nuke carriers as well as the first three nuclear carriers, USS Enterprise (CVN-65), USS Nimitz (CVN-68), and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69). Hopefully they'll include Burkes at a later date. For now, I'm happy with what there is.
Here's a series of screen shots I took while launching a helo from USS Gallery (FFG-26). In the first shot you can see the port side hangar door opening. On the lower right of the screen is the flight deck window which indicates that I've got an SH-2F heading towards the launch point.
Screen shot from the game (Actual game play)
Now in the next screen you can see the helo is out of the hangar but hasn't moved to the launch point yet (the middle of the circle on the flight deck).
Screen shot from the game (Actual game play)
Once the aircraft is at the launch point, you can listen as the engines spool up, the sound is pretty awesome. After a short wait, the rotors begin to spin. Although you can't see it in the shot below, the rotors are spinning and it's shortly before the pilot "pulls pitch." If you look close, you can see the rotor wash on the sea from the helo!
Screen shot from the game (Actual game play)
Now the aircraft is airborne and awaiting your orders.
Really cool stuff if you ask me.
Screen shot from the game (Actual game play)
So if the posts seem short (maybe even non-existent), you'll know why.
Okay, sea and anchor detail have been called away, gotta run, see you when I get back. Virtually, of course.
Ciao!
¹He does play now, after being out of the Navy for over a decade.
